“Comments by State Treasurer, Tom Koutsantonis, on the Australian National University’s investment portfolio shows that he doesn’t take climate change seriously and doesn’t respect investment decisions based on clear scientific evidence,” says Greens Treasury and Energy Spokesperson Mark Parnell MLC.

“The Treasurer is also issuing a thinly-veiled threat to SA Universities and other investors not to let climate change considerations get in the way of investment decisions.

“The Treasurer doesn’t accept that investors have the right to choose which companies to invest in.

“Describing the ANU decision to divest from certain fossil fuel and other resource companies on social and environmental grounds as “embarrassing” and based on “emotion and scaremongering” shows that the Treasurer doesn’t accept that the climate crisis should inform investment decisions,”

“For the Treasurer to suggest that his protection of fossil fuel companies is based on better science and economics than ANU’s is laughable.

“It is not for Governments to dictate or bully universities and other investors as to where they should put their money. Freedom to invest also means freedom to not invest. Smart money knows that fossil fuels are not the future, and it’s getting out quick,” concluded Mark Parnell.